A march of over 10,000 Dominicans blanketed the immigrant community of Washington Heights in scorching hot uptown Manhattan on July 16. The march was timed to coincide with a national Marcha Verde in the Dominican capital city Santo Domingo where over 200,000 people marched 4.2 km converging on Congress.
Outraged at the corruption that has long been common practice in Dominican politics, the Dominican people took to the streets en masse to say “Basta Ya,” enough is enough.
Impeach President Medina!
The tipping point came last year when the Brazilian mega construction firm Odebrecht was caught red handed paying bribes to President Danilo Medina, his underlings and opposition party leaders from the PRM to score massive construction deals in the Dominican Republic. Grupo Odebrecht handed out payoffs of millions to key politicians and the government intentionally marked up the price on projects in order to overcharge Dominican taxpayers.
Danilo Medina presides over what is one of the most corrupt political systems in the Caribbean. The 2016 presidential elections proved to be yet another contest to control the purse strings of the nation and pillage the treasury.
Chanting “Danilo te jodiste por el dinero que cogiste” (Danilo you screwed up by stealing our money) and “el pueblo trabajando y el PLD robando” (the people working while the PLD robs), the sea of green moved up Broadway with onlookers joining the crowd.
Ángel García, the national spokesperson of la Juventud Duartiana (The Juan Pablo Duarte Youth) analyzed the significance of this historic movement:
“The Marcha Verde’s importance is that is has unleashed a movement that is empowering the citizenry. This mass movement represents a new precedent in our country. Never before in our national history have we mobilized so many people to stand up to impunity. Now everyday workers and students are becoming conscious that they have a responsibility to act as fiscal watchdogs over government functionaries. Those who thought themselves untouchable and above the law are finally under pressure; the bureaucrats understand that political delinquency will be punished. The massive green wave is demanding convictions of the corrupt politicians, the return of the money they stole to the public treasury and the suspension of all contracts with Odebrecht.”
Building a mass movement
Green became the color of this historic movement because it was distinct from the purple and white political symbols the Dominican electorate was accustomed to. Green symbolized something new and fresh that a people exhausted by traditional politics could believe in. The color symbolic of nature became the color of the anti-corruption campaign.
Grassroots, leftist organizers were determined to launch a movement that masses of people could believe in and be proud of. Regional marches delivered green torches to historic places. Organizers in green shirts collected millions of signatures in green books. These were the building blocks of one long organizing campaign, culminating in this Sunday’s marches.
This is the most massive resistance movement the D.R. has seen since the “Cold War” when a vibrant, united Dominican left challenged the U.S. puppet Joaquin Balaguer for power.
The challenges of a mass movement
The Green March movement is similar to the anti-Trump movement in that it is an ideologically diverse movement of millions with different political actors. There is a left and right wing vying for leadership.
The other big bourgeois party, the PRM wants to cash in on La Marcha Verde movement. Don’t let its name fool you. There is nothing revolutionary about the leading “opposition” party, the Partido Revolucionario Moderno or PRM (Modern Revolutionary Party, formerly the PRD, the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano).
The PRM is caught in a big contradiction. How can they lead the protest movement when they are complicit in the scandal? The PRM president Andrés Bautista and their spokesman in the House of Representative Alfredo Pacheco are both implicated in the scandal. The PRM cannot demand jail time for the purple thieves (the color of the PLD) and liberty for the white thieves (the color of the PRM). Their claim to be part of La Marcha Verde is like Hillary Clinton’s claim to be part of the resistance in the U.S.: complete hypocrisy.
This is one of the great lessons the Dominican and American people are learning. The PLD and PRM and Republicans and Democrats represent the two heads of the same coin of corruption and inequality. Voting for either one is a lost vote because the same exploitative system remains in power. Carlos Amarente Barat, leader of the PLD’s Political Committee, recognized the danger “this movement represents to the entire political system.”
The task before the Dominican left is to win people away from the two traditional parties. The challenge is that when elections come in 2020, the PLD and the PRM offer bribes of 500 pesos (roughly $10 dollars), bags of Pica Pollo (fast food) and boxes of rum in order to buy votes. This tradition一dating back to Trujillo and Balaguer一gives a sense of just how rotten the system is. La Marcha Verde represents a steel wrench thrust into this corrupt political machinery.
The way forward
The Dominican left一which is composed of El Frente Amplio, El Movimiento Popular Dominicano, La Fuerza de la Revolución and other organizations一is committed to turning the green torch into a red torch. While the PRM and other liberal parties try to steal the media spotlight and take credit for the mobilization, it has been grassroots anti-imperialist organizers who have given the movement its national coherence.
In the U.S. we are all too familiar with the abuse of authority. Our reality here of jail for the poor and impunity for the rich is a mirror image of the Dominican reality.
It is also important to highlight the colonial relationship that exists between the two countries. The U.S. government works hand in hand with their Dominican cronies to keep the revolutionary movement at bay, twice occupying the Caribbean country in the 20th century. It is the U.S. military that trains and funds the Dominican military and U.S. capital that super exploits Dominican workers in la zona franca (Free Trade Zones or sweatshops). Until D.R. is free of external influence, millions will have no choice but to migrate in order to make a living.
All progressive and revolutionary people should salute the unity and courage of the Dominican people and continue to stand with them in the streets. From la avenida Duarte in Santo Domingo to Broadway in Washington Heights, we have the same enemy and the same struggle. Hasta la victoria siempre compañer@s!
